Description: FASB's Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 97 contains wide-sweeping changes to the preparation of GAAP financials for insurance companies. The focus of this article will be on the ramifications of the interest rate FASB has decided to use to amortize deferred acquisition costs.

Description: The article discusses the continued popularity of indexed UL insurance and possible reasons why a company's actual indexed UL earnings may be below their original pricing expectations for the product. The article discusses several key items that may be the source of that underperformance (e.g., hedge ineffectiveness, policyholder behavior) and the need to monitor earnings and perform analyses to better understand those potential sources.

Description: This article describes that some companies are ‘approaching the problem of how to accommodate Universal Life in GAAP statements by using a simple method which produces not unreasonable results and waiting for consensus on appropriate methodology to develop. This describes so of the methodology currently in use.

Description: The authors set forth a generalized model describing the application of current law [1976 NAIC model Standard Valuation Law and Standard Nonforfeiture Law] to products of the universal life type. Includes discussion and author’s review of discussion. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1983 Volume 35.

Description: Panelists provide background and updates on a number of statutory issues relating to life and annuity products, including statutory codification implementation, Actuarial Guideline MMMM, Actuarial Guideline AXXX and implications of the movement to the 2001 CSO table. Changes to federal reporting requirements, through the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, are briefly discussed relative to the recent accounting problems in the news. From the 2002 Record of Society of Actuaries, Volume 28, No. 3. Session 78OF of the Boston Annual Meeting.

Description: This article is aimed to cover the following: 1) Provides an assessment of income volatility under Long Duration Targeted Improvements (LDTI) for several key types of long duration contracts along with select illustrations, and compares against those under current GAAP, 2) Discuss areas where accounting policies or methodologies can influence income volatility, and 3) Show how a company's management reporting can be adapted to help explain income variances under LDTI.